Generic Gameing Thread

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In chat I've found a few people who play Role Playing Games (D&D, ShadowRun, Paranoia) or mini "war" games (ShockForce or WarHammer 40k kinda stuff). Even the Kewl board and card games, like Settlers of Catan, Magic the Gathering, Fluxx.

Anyone else here into this kinda stuff? Do you ever go to the gaming conventions in your area? Can we have a generic RPG thread?

We've been playing a lot of Shock Force and War Zone, really a lot of fun. (even painting the models is fun) (I have a squad of Pink Space Marines...the guys hate when I beat them with that)

Live Action RPGs are getting more popular now. Any Vampires? StarWars people? (Vampire LARPS are a BIG money maker at all the conventions) Have you ever played? Just seeing whos got those creative genes here.

(The Star WArs larps are extreme fun!)

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), June 17, 2000

Answers

Being a former "doomer", I'm a DOOM and DOOM II kind of guy.

-- Flash (flash@flash.hq), June 17, 2000.

Hiya Kritter,

We've yakked about this; so I trust you already know the answert. :) :) Right now, I am involved in three campaigns; a 19th century British Naval campaign; a 1930-40 pulp/Adventure type campaign, and a Science-Fiction campaign. No real Vampire or LARP stuff here in Maui.

Never even *heard* of Star Wars LARP; I'll *bet* it would be incredible fun. My Jedi Knight outfit would kick Wookiee. :) Hey, I ONLY wear it on Halloween... :) :)

Keep smiling,

Jonathan

-The Force will be with you...-

-- Jonathan Latimer (latimer@q-a.net), June 17, 2000.


Flash, I'll let you answer Doom since it *is* a game, and considering the amount of time I spent "playing" Myst and Riven..heh. Doom always made me nausiated, I could never survive in a virtual world.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), June 17, 2000.

We just put in Capt'n Crunch. I use freecell when I need to do some thinking, I should get nintendo 65 or whatever it is because it has a Zelda game.

What are some good on-line games and where do you find them?

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), June 17, 2000.


My wife and I get together with some friends every so often and play an RPG called "Stalking the Night Fantastic" (it has an "X-Files" type of premise). We also play the occasional D&D. Most of our non- gaming friends think it's a little weird, but screw 'em. It's a great escape from the "real" world. I used to run a Shadowrun campaign that lasted many years, but I kind of lost interest after the Second Edition rules came out.

"Paranoia" is a game that brings back a lot of fond memories, but I haven't played that one since high school. "Stay alert. Trust no one. Keep your blaster handy." Come to think of it, sounds a lot like EZBoard. :)

-- Privateer (ironic_detachment@hotmail.com), June 17, 2000.



Privateer, Paranoia is a blast to play at the conventions. What a great game, still. Since your name is Privateer, ever play VGA Planets? (Privateer was a race in that game, so just wondering) It's another game that I absolutely love..well..used to. New editions to rules and games do sometimes screw them up. Was the case for Planets.

Cherri, used to spend hours playing Freecell at my old job. There was nothing else to do some days. Started at number one, and just worked my way along..I think the best I could do was a 58 game win streak. I also spent a lot of time playing Minesweeper, expert level..but the carpal tunnel syndrome set in..heh.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), June 18, 2000.


kritter,

I could see how Paranoia would lend itself to convention play. Normally, I don't like the kind of "quickie" nature of convention gaming because I like to have much more time to really "get into" the characters and the setting. Paranoia, though, is one of the few games (IMHO) in which even a quick one-timer can be really fun.

Never heard of VGA Planets. I'll have to check it out. I chose the handle "Privateer" in honor of the many hours I wasted in college playing the computer game "Pirates". Aargh!

-- Privateer (ironic_detachment@hotmail.com), June 18, 2000.


VGA planets is OK, but I think Stars is a better game. Check out the demo. You can play against the AIs to learn the game, then find a game on the web with real players.

http://beast.webmap.com/stars%21/

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 18, 2000.


Sysman,

Thanks for the tip. I ran the Stars demo, and I must say it looks pretty darn kewl.

Must resist becoming hooked. Must resist becoming hooked. Must resist...

-- Privateer (ironic_detachment@hotmail.com), June 18, 2000.


Privateer,

You're welcome. I like the game, and have been playing for around 4 years. While I'm not currently in a web game, I will be looking for one soon. I recently changed my race design, and have been trying it out in a local game, vs. the AIs. I like the results, may make a very minor adjustment or 2, but will be using my new race soon in battle!

If you get involved with a few other good players, it can take months to finish a game. I was in one about a year ago, that took 5 months to finish. I came in second in that one. That's when I started to think about changing my race, again...

Most net games allow one turn per day. When you first start, it only takes a few minutes to do your turn. But after a while, as you build more fleets and starbases, it can take quite a bit of time to review everything that happens in a turn. Many tasks can be automated, but I still find myself taking a closer look at everything, especially toward the end of a game.

Now, repeat after me, I am not hooked... I am not hooked... I am not hooked... ... ... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 19, 2000.



PS,

The current demo is, I believe, limited to 80 turns. While this is good enough to get a feel for the game, it's tough to get a complete game done in that many turns. And it sucks when you've almost won, to have the game time-out on you!

An older version, 2.6b, doesn't have this limit, but still contains most of the features in the latest version. It does have other restrictions, like you can't use the race editor, and technology is limited to 10 levels each, but these aren't too bad to live with. This version does issue a warning after 30 days, but you can get rid of it by deleting the STARS.INI file in your Windows folder. When you delete the INI file, you will lose some settings, like your window layout, and any custom build orders, but these are easy to fix. Of course none of this matters, if you have the retail version.

You can download 2.6b shareware, or any demo version, from this page. It also has VGA Planets, and a couple of similar games that I haven't checked out:

http://www.jacobean. demon.co.uk/files.html

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 19, 2000.


Thanks Sys, Stars looks cool. REminds me of VGAP when I still LIKED the game. I played out 10 quick turns to get a feel for it, and now I am giving turn 11 some thought. :-)

I met my husband playing VGAP, by the way, in a daily turn game that lasted almost seven months. Of course, we spent six of those months hating each other :-) (As the privateers, he made off with more of my ships than I care to admit, but as the Lizards, I finally wiped out most of his core planets and people, and eventually went on to win that game) The second edition was cool with some add ons, but from that point on, it just got silly. There was so much to remember that I got burnt out. (ever play the rebels and accidently make a hyperspace jump to nowhere?) Ah, the good old days.

Also playing Robo Rally, board game, anyone else come across this nutty game? If nothing else, it makes us laugh all night. I don't think we've ever managed to win that game, any of us.

Convention games are short, mainly four and eight hour time slots, you really have flush out a character and group quickly and get on with it, I will agree. However, I like meeting new people and playing something new with them. I'd developed many friendships in four hour games. I think I laugh more overall during con games. Everyone gets silly after four days of no sleep..heh.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), June 19, 2000.


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